The Donald Trump administration’s insistence the Maryland resident deported to El Salvador by mistake is a member of the criminal gang MS-13 can be traced back to a single unnamed police informant, a review of court documents reveals.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, is a construction worker and father of three with no criminal record who was arrested and sent to a notorious mega-prison on March 15, a decision a Justice Department attorney subsequently conceded was the result of an “administrative error.”
But rather than comply with a federal court order that it “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, the administration has dug in its heels, ignoring the campaign for the detainee’s release being led by his wife and instead preferring to make accusations about his background.
Abrego Garcia has admitted that he first entered the United States illegally in 2012 but denies having any association with MS-13.
The only basis for thinking otherwise comes from a Prince George’s County Police report into his arrest, along with three other men, for “loitering” in the car park of a branch of Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, in March 2019.
Abrego Garcia protested that he was simply looking for work and was not ultimately charged with a crime.
However, the arresting officer completed a “Gang Field Interview Sheet” in which he noted that Abrego Garcia was “wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with decorations of rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations.”
“Officers know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture,” the filing said, suggesting that the graphics on the hoodie were a covert reference to MS-13’s “see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil” motto.
Crucially, the sheet also cited a tip from a confidential police informant, described as a “proven and reliable source”, who alleged that Abrego Garcia was a “chequeo” in the gang’s “Westerns” clique, which operates out of New York, a city in which the immigrant has never lived, as his lawyers have argued in court.
While the loitering accusation amounted to nothing, Abrego Garcia was nevertheless held in custody by immigration authorities.
Although he was given no reason for his detention, his lawyers claimed, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claimed they were interested in him in connection with a murder investigation.
Immigration judge Elizabeth Kessler, presiding over his case, said at the time that ICE’s reasoning “does appear at odds with the Gang Field Interview Sheet, which states that the respondent was approached because he and others were loitering outside of a Home Depot.”
She nevertheless refused to grant him asylum, saying the police’s unnamed tipster “appears to be trustworthy.”
However, Judge Kessler also said: “Although the court is reluctant to give evidentiary weight to the respondent’s clothing as an indication of gang affiliation, the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ verified the respondent’s gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support that the respondent is a gang member.”
Her decision was later upheld on appeal by another judge, causing Abrego Garcia to be refused bail and remain in custody.
That October, Abrego married U.S. citizen Jennifer Vasquez Sura and applied for asylum, which Judge David Jones did not grant him, although he was awarded a “withholding of removal” order to bar his deportation to El Salvador, a ruling the Trump administration’s actions last month may have violated.
Judge Jones accepted that Abrego Garcia’s life could be placed in danger if he was returned to El Salvador from the Barrio 18 gang, whose attempts to extort his mother’s pupusa business led to the family’s escape to the U.S. years earlier.
Abrego Garcia was finally released and, according to his lawyers, attended annual check-ins with immigration officials “without fail and without incident,” which was the end of his citizenship troubles until Trump returned to office.
With even the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the administration to bring about his return, the White House has so far preferred to attack the media and smear the victim. On Wednesday the Department of Homeland Security claimed Abrego Garcia had drugs and rolls of cash about his person during the Home Depot arrest, a detail not mentioned on the aforementioned gang interview sheet.
The White House has released Maryland court documents revealing that Vasquez Sura filed for a protective order against her husband in 2021.
She has since dismissed the matter, telling Newsweek in a statement: “After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution following a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order, in case things escalated.
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. We were able to work through the situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”
To the fury of President Trump, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen has now flown out to El Salvador and succeeded in securing a meeting with Abrego Garcia.
“If you listen to President Trump and the Trump administration, you would think that the U.S. courts have found that Mr Abrego Garcia is part of MS-13. But in fact, they have not found that,” he told reporters in El Salvador this week.
“In fact, recently, a U.S. federal court judge said that the Trump administration did not have evidence to support the claim that he had ever been part of MS-13. In fact, Mr Abrego Garcia is legally in the United States. In fact, an immigration judge found years ago that it would put his life in danger if he was returned to El Salvador.
“I want to emphasize that President Trump and our Attorney General Pam Bondi and the vice president of the United States are lying when they say that Abrego Garcia has been charged with a crime or was part of MS-13. That is a lie.”
